Iranian Nuke Program Further Developed, New Approach Necessary

The war of words between President Bush and Iranian President Ahmadinejad continues to intensify. As Bush reaffirmed his warning on Wednesday that a nuclear-armed Iran might lead to WWIII, Ahmadinejad announced that Iran reached its target of 3,000 fully-functioning centrifuges at the Natanz nuclear facility. Although no independent authority has verified these claims, Ahmadinejad’s announcement goes beyond previous statements by indicating that the centrifuges are now up and running.

Centrifuges produce uranium gas, which can either be developed into fuel for a nuclear reactor or – at higher levels of enrichment – fuel for a nuclear bomb. AP notes that "the number 3,000 is the commonly accepted figure for a nuclear enrichment program that is past the experimental stage and can be used as a platform for a full industrial-scale program that could churn out enough enriched material for dozens of nuclear weapons, should Iran chose to go the route." According to AFP, "this number is a key milestone because scientists say that in ideal conditions it is sufficient to produce enough enriched uranium in one year to make a single nuclear bomb."

Iran's continued development of its uranium enrichment program is in clear defiance of unilateral and multilateral efforts by the U.S. and the international community to curb the development of its nuclear program. Even assuming the truthfulness of Ahmadinejad's claims, his public statements about his country’s nuclear program are aggressive at a minimum.

But examining this issue from beyond the somewhat limited perspective we are offered by the Bush administration or the mainstream media, it is not far-fetched to argue that Ahmadinejad's rhetoric and actions may be as much of a response as they are a catalyst in the international controversy regarding the country’s nuclear program.

Statements that Iran "could not care less" about UN Security Council resolutions because they are based on a "wrong report" seem on provocative-par with Bush's recent discussions of "WWIII," a "nuclear holocaust," and threats of military action against the Islamic state. The battle of words has certainly intensified in opposition to the goal of trying to prevent a battle of nuclear weapons.

In addition to a war of words, other recent activity from Washington has done little to create an environment conducive to constructive dialogue. These activities include the blacklisting of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard Corps in the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment, as well as unilateral sanctions initiated by the U.S. and encouraged for European nations. The UN Security Council has already instituted two sets of sanctions, with some countries pushing for a third.

It seems that it might be a valuable lesson for the Bush administration to learn that any action short of military engagement does not automatically constitute "diplomacy." The recent debate in the U.S. regarding Iran's nuclear program seems to have devolved into a false dichotomy. One side advocates a hawkish stance in which military action against the country is seen as necessary, while the other advocates "everything else," a position which is now dominated by punitive measures.

A word of advice to the Bush administration: rather than just using sticks and bigger sticks in our effort to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons, a few carrots might come in handy.

Presidential Candidates on Nukes, Iran, and Iraq

Which of the presidential candidates would attempt to eliminate nuclear stockpiles worldwide, who would only try to reduce them, and who would fund new nukes?


The Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) just released a summary of presidential candidates' stances on Iraq, Iran, and nuclear weapons in their publication, Eyes on the Prize. Candidate information is available for Clinton, Edwards, Giuliani, Huckabee, McCain, Obama, Richardson, Romney, and Thompson. View the report here.

You may also be interested in checking out candidates' responses to seven key national security questions from a survey conducted by Council for a Livable World.

Deepti Choubey: A Chance for Nuclear Leadership

Deepti Choubey of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace penned a great piece yesterday on the need for U.S. leadership in global nonproliferation efforts.

Whoever wins in 2008, the most important strategic foreign policy issue facing the next President and Congress will be how to prevent the further spread of nuclear weapons. For almost four decades the world has been protected by a global agreement -- the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) -- which worked to keep the number of nuclear weapon states small. That agreement, and the world order that relies on it, badly needs U.S. leadership.

There are three reasons why American influence is needed. First, the nuclear "have-not" states, who signed away their right to develop nuclear weapons, don't believe that the "haves" are living up to their side of the deal to eventually dismantle their weapons.

Second, Iran's continuing refusal to comply with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) obligations and legally binding UN Security Council resolutions undermines the effectiveness of a rule-based system for managing nuclear technology and threatens international peace and security.

And third, as excitement over a nuclear energy renaissance grows, non-nuclear-weapon states in the developing world declare large ambitions to master the nuclear fuel cycle, a scenario the old rules didn't account for.

But the regime can be saved.

How, you eagerly ask? Well, you’ll have to read on.

House-Senate Conference Committee Funds RRW

House and Senate Conferees agreed yesterday to a FY 2008 Defense Appropriations bill, which could soon go to the President’s desk. At just over $459 billion, the bill is $3.5 billion less than the President’s FY 2008 budget request, but $39.7 billion more than the FY 2007 enacted level for the Department of Defense.

Significantly, funding for the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program was limited to $15 million, effectively adopting the Senate’s funding levels. The Senate-approved bill had cut the President’s request for RRW funding from $30 million down to $15 million, although the House-approved version had completely zeroed out RRW funding. The Conferees also included language to restrict the funding to Phase 2A, design definition and cost study.

This development, however, was noticeably absent from the highlights sheet released by both the House and the Senate as well as the summaries of the report released by the Senate Appropriations Committee and the Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense.

The summaries did, however, provide key information on other issues important to nuclear weapons and nonproliferation:

Missile Defense
The joint-House-Senate bill provides $8.7 billion for missile defense programs, a reduction of $185 million from the President’s budget request. Notably, it reduces funding for the European Third Site program by $85 million and provides no funding for the Space Test Bed.

The bill also:
· Fully funds Theater High Altitude Area Defense
· Provides an additional $80 million for test and training range upgrades and support and ground-based missile defense enhancements
· Provides an additional $75 million for the Aegis program for the Ballistic Signal Processor, Standard Missiles, Ship installations and upgrades, and an asymmetric defense initiative
· Adds $75 million for Arrow co-production, the Upper-tier program, and Short Range Ballistic Missile Defense
· Provides an additional $120 million for the Kinetic Energy Interceptor program

Chemical Agents and Munitions Destruction
At $1.51 billion, the bill provides $57 million above the amended President’s budget request.

Prompt Global Strike
The bill also establishes the Prompt Global Strike initiative for $100 million, which consolidates disparate efforts from across the Department.

“Non-Treehuggers Criticize the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership”

Catchy title, right?

Plutonium Page at Daily Kos put together a great piece recently on GNEP in which she argues that the program is “a complex domestic issue as well as a thorny international one. Political and environmental situations are not static; and regardless of how ‘friendly’ the reprocessing technology proposed by the GNEP sounds, it is not foolproof when it comes to proliferation … Whether you're in favor of storing spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain or Novaya Zemlya, we can all agree that something has to be done. The GNEP will not solve it... not in this lifetime.”

Click here for the full post.

John Isaacs: Congress and Iran: The New Iraq?

Executive Director of the Center, John Isaacs, published a new article last week on the simmering situation in Congress concerning Iran. He sees last month as a turning point in the administration's PR offensive laying the groundwork for a preventive U.S. attack against Iran.

The drumbeat of a possible march to war with Iran reached a new intensity in recent weeks. Although the campaign is led by President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, cheerleaders in Congress and the conservative community—with no small assistance from Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his inflammatory rhetoric—are aiding and abetting.

While the Iraq War continues into its fifth year as a debilitating quagmire, with Democrats lacking the votes to bring U.S. soldiers home, the war debate has shifted to Iran. Congressional hardliners offer amendments to bills to show how tough they are toward Ahmadinejad, and few Democrats are willing to vote "no."

Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidates are eagerly trying to outhawk each other with statements regarding Iran. The Democratic candidates have gotten into the act too, although they are competing to show who is most open to a diplomatic solution, rather than war.

If U.S. warplanes fly toward Iran next year, October 2007 may be remembered as the month that the Bush administration began its final push to prepare the American public for a new conflagration in the Middle East. To many, it looked like the 2002 run-up to the attack against Iraq. As Yogi Berra said, it's "déjà vu all over again."

Click here for the complete article.

National Security Legislative Wrap-up, October 29-November 2 2007

Action is expected to pick up this week on the national security front. The Defense Appropriations conference report is virtually completed, with final approval by the conference committee expected this week and floor action soon after. Last week, Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) sent President Bush a letter signed by 30 Senators that called the Administration's recent statements on Iran "counterproductive" and stated "that no offensive military action would be justified against Iran without the express consent of Congress."

ACTION IN THE LAST WEEK

The Fiscal Year 2008 Defense Authorization bill is being considered by a House-Senate conference committee to work out the differences between the House and Senate versions of the bills.

The Fiscal Year 2008 Defense Appropriations bill has been virtually completed by a House-Senate conference committee working out differences between the two versions. The conferees are scheduled to meet formally this week, and then send the conference report to the full House and Senate for approval.

The Fiscal Year 2008 Energy and Water Appropriations bill has passed the House and the Senate Appropriations Committee but may never get to the Senate floor, going instead directly to a House-Senate conference as part of a larger package of bills.

The Fiscal Year 2008 State, Foreign Appropriations bill is being considered by a House-Senate conference committee to work out the differences between the two bills.

The Fiscal Year Supplemental Appropriations bill to pay for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars -- which now totals about $190 billion -- is not likely to be considered until later this year or even early next year. Both Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd (D-WV) and House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-WI) have promised to attach language to bring American troops home from Iraq.

William Hartung: To Build or Not to Build?

The New America Foundation’s William Hartung recently put out a great report on Complex Transformation (the proposal to modernize and upgrade the NNSA’s nuclear weapons complex), with a special focus on the Kansas City Plant.

It begins...

Periodically the United States government reviews its doctrine on the strategic purpose and potential use of nuclear weapons. In keeping with its most recent Nuclear Posture Review, released in 2002, the Bush administration has proposed a revision of the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. foreign policy. In place of the Cold War “triad” of nuclear delivery vehicles based on land, at sea, and in the air, the review proposed a “new triad” consisting of offensive strike systems, an expansion of missile defense initiatives, and the construction of a “revitalized infrastructure” designed to develop and produce new nuclear weapons as needed. A central component of this revitalized infrastructure is the plan to build a new nuclear weapons plant in Kansas City.

Click here for the full report.